The feathered prop

By Karl Brauneis

The men stood on the ramp. There were 31 of them now. They waited to hear the news. The first jump was scheduled for yesterday but high winds and a storm cancelled the flight. The foreman walked in and out of the dispatch center across from them. The men would go back to the fire behavior class if the jump got cancelled. They were like school boys waiting for recess to get out of math class.

On the ramp sat two Douglas DC-3 (Doug) jump ships. Red tape covered the fuselage where the static lines rubbed against the plane. The tape prevented the lines from cutting anything sharp during a jump. It was the 1970s but to look across the ramp you might think it was 1944 in England. A B-17 Retardant bomber sat across from the jump ships. They all sat on their tails.

They waited. Soon the pilots appeared and boarded the jump planes. That was a good sign. Then, the loud speaker announced; “Suit Up.” The time had come. After two weeks of ground training the first week of jump training arrived.

The radial engine starter whined. Two more whines and the port engine kicked over with a cough and a sputter. Smoke poured from the radial as the prop began to turn. It was beautiful. Soon the starboard engine kicked over. He loved the sound and smell of the smoke from the radial engines. Now the props whirled and the men re-appeared from the ready room suited up. He wore two parachutes. A main chute and a reserve with a straight blade army knife on top. Each man boarded his respective plane when the foreman called out his name.

They sat on the floor of the plane in a line within the legs of the man behind him. It all angled down to the tail dragger wheel. They taxied out and spun on to the main runway. They waited. Soon the radial engines came to full power. The brakes released and they picked up speed.

As the speed increased the tail lifted up and the men were now sitting level. Then they were airborne and climbed. They flew through a blue sky and into the clouds. In the clouds it looked like winter. They climbed further up into more blue. Later they began to circle the jump spot. They leveled out at 1500 feet above the ground. He could see a bright colored X in the center of the jump spot when the plane turned in its pattern. There was no door to open and close on the Doug, only a big open space. A man they called the spotter got down by the big open and threw out drift streamers. He had an intercom microphone on a cord to

talk to the pilots. That’s all he could see from where he was in the back of the plane. The man in the big open would control the time and space to kick out the jumpers.

A squad leader stepped around the men as he moved to the open space. The squad leader stopped at him, turned and grabbed his cage screen mask. He called his name then pulled the mask up close so their faces were just inches apart and said, “It’s a Good Day to Die.” There was a grin and a spark in his eye. Still, his heart stopped. The man in front of him made the sign of the cross over his face and chest. He was a Catholic cowboy from Deerlodge.

The squad leader went to the big open behind the spotter and moved into position. A veteran jumper took the place behind him. The men hooked their static lines to a vertical cable and inserted a safety pin. The spotter checked them over from the static line safety pin to their head and toe and on to the back of their parachutes. He yelled “OK” as he patted each jumper on the shoulder and cleared them to jump. They would jump two men at a time. They call it a two man stick. The plane came around. The squad leader looked down the plane at the men sitting with a sense of calm. He got into position. The spotter was now back down on the floor of the plane looking out with his microphone. He yelled to the squad leader to give him some last second instructions. He then talked to the pilots and the plane made an adjustment. They all felt it shift as they waited. It shifted again. The spotter spoke again and the pilot feathered the port prop. The spotter pulled back out of the open and slapped the squad leaders calf and out the door they went. His heart stopped. The pilot brought the port prop back to full power again. The plane lifted up. Did they just jump out of this airplane? Yes, they did and reality set in. The spotter pulled in their static lines that detached the parachute from the plane after deploying the chutes with brake tape. He pulled out the safety pins to unclip the lines from the cable and set them aside.

It was all business. A very exact and perfect business. They built the business on what worked and what didn’t work. If it didn’t work it was removed from the business. Only what worked remained.

The men jumped by sequence in front of him. Soon it was his turn. He was second in the stick. The spotter gave him the rigger check and yelled “OK” and slapped him on the shoulder. The man in front was “Hardy.” Hardy moved into position and he moved in right behind him. If Hardy goes I go. If Hardy goes I go. He repeated it over and over again. The prop feathered and there was a slap from the spotter. Hardy jumped and he followed him out through the big open space and into the prop blast and the military tuck and the Big Sky. He yelled out his numbers. There was a shock and he checked the parachute above him. It was big and beautiful. An orange and white umbrella spread above him and it was fully open. He rocked under the parachute. He felt like a baby rocking in his mother’s arms.

It was quiet and still. The noise and action of the airplane was gone. Now, it was just the wind whispering as if he were on a mountain top or in a pine forest. It was beautiful. In the hush of the wind he rocked in his mother’s arms.

He checked his jump partner who was now angled below him. Hardy looked good. Hardy looked at him to make sure he was alright. Then, they both turned to concentrate on the spot. He held into the wind and found the X in the center. The hills and the mountains rose up and away from them. It was all so new. The depth perception and judgment of time, speed and space were all new. It all began to change him.

He worked the steering lines to align with the spot. He was doing ok but he knew he had a lot to learn. There were just too many variables. He was descending at 18 feet per second. He must land the way they taught him with the parachute landing fall (PLF). Now the ground came rushing up at him fast. They both met hard and he rolled to the side and over and looked up. He was no longer in that place between heaven and earth.